Padgett Powell Quotes

I spent so many years shuffled around. I'm used to it and can deal with it.

Relative to most people I know, I am comfortable just about anywhere. I went to 20 schools before the 8th grade because my father couldn't hold a job. We moved every six months. I had to adjust.

I moved around 13 different times before I was in fifth grade, not having money, not having a lot of friends.

We moved a lot. I went to nine schools in four states before I was 14. It gave me tough skin, exposed me to lots of different kinds of people and made me somewhat adaptable.

Just looking at society as a whole, there are a lot of different things that we are not doing as a group to make sure we are close. Everything is in transit. People are moving from place to place. You can have a neighbor you live next to for five years and never speak to, and nobody has a problem with that.

It was difficult when I was very young because I was so separated from my family. When I was at school or acting in a play, I felt very much part of something, and then it would always change, and I would be by myself.

I know I have great inner strength; I always have. I can blank things out, cut people out, and I know that I can go and live in a cave on my own if necessary.

I had a few really bad years in school, just from not fitting in and being bullied. It was kind of brilliant being a military brat, though, because when you're in that kind of situation, you just think, 'I only have to hang on for another year, because then we'll move. It'll be fine if I can just get out of here.'

There is nothing permanent except change.

I don't like anything permanent; I have to be able to flee. You have to be able to flee at a moment's notice.

Humanity abhors, above all things, a vacuum in itself, and your class will be cut off from humanity as the surgeon cuts the cancer and alien growth from the body.

These are the instructions you are getting today. It is only fair to tell you, however, that they may be changed tomorrow. And ten days later they may be changed back to the instructions you are getting now.

Without disruptions in life, where would we be?

It's very easy to think that the way things are is the way things will stay, and life just isn't like that.

I was brought up with a scientific outlook on life. It's the way my father deciphers the world - whether it's football, politics or hairstyles. So I don't get anxious about the future, because I was raised to believe and accept that nothing stays the same, and the best way to survive is to adapt.

I'm never in the same place for more than, like, three days at a time. Things can change from one minute to the next.

As someone who works and travels as much, you could feel... A bit rootless?

Because we moved so much, I was always having to adapt and work out the lay of the land. So I felt envious of those who did not have to try.

There was no time when I lived anywhere longer than two years. I was always a social outcast. Maybe I didn't care what people thought because I was like, 'Well, I probably won't stick around here for too long.'

Change is the only constant in this unsteady world.

We moved from place to place, and it was hard to adjust to different schools. But we made it.

I've very aware of my rootlessness.

When I look at my own work, I see love, loss, and loneliness. Part of it might be that I was an army brat. I moved around all the time. There was a sense of nothing being permanent.

I was always making new friends, then losing them.

I moved schools seven or eight times, but I never thought of it as a problem. I didn't become attached to people.